The power of our brains blows me away. Here's what I was thinking this morning.

At the end of a night, we tend to be tired and think less clearly, so we go to sleep.

And then, when we are asleep, our brains don't really stop--it re-charges by working!

And it does things that we rarely do when we are awake. What really blew me away last night is that in my dream, other people were telling jokes, and they surprised me and made me laugh.

Which means that part of my brain is writing comedy material, but hiding it from the other part of my brain that is going to hear it in the dream.

Or (more likely, actually) it is spontaneously creating it for one character of the dream, and then experiencing it in the first person.

Either way, to have creative thought like that is great in and of itself, but to actually hide it from my own mind until the right moment really blows me away.

If I were an intelligent design guy, I would spend a lot of time talking about dreams. I haven't kept up with the latest research, but when I did, neuroscientists didn't have a clue what was happening.

The old words of churches are incapable of being
saving words anymore.
The old words fail and fall silent,
and our Christian life consists only
of prayer and trying to do the right thing.
It is not for us to foretell the day,
but the day will come
when some are called
to utter the word
of God
in such a way
that the world is changed and renewed.
There will be a new language,
perhaps quite unreligious,
but liberating and saving,
like the language of Jesus,
so that people are horrified by it,
and yet conquered by its power,
the language of a new truth,
the language that foretells the peace
of God
and the coming
of the Kingdom.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Letters and Papers from Prison

my house. "The Ordinary Radicals."

This is the story of a peculiar people,
with no King but God,
practicing a revolution of love,
and making the world anew.

Their isn't the old-time religion of saving up for going to heaven;
this is bringing heaven to the world.

7pm.

For design nerds with iPhones:



found via Buffalo Feed.

I'll still be on media where I know people, so blogs, twitter, and facebook are all good, but I am taking a break from videos and mindless websites in the hope that "old media" will change me in some positive ways.

So, starting Wednesday, limited internet, no tv, and no partisan talk radio. Until Easter (but maybe longer if it is as good for me as I think it will be)

Tomorrow is the day that we remember our mortality. Not so pleasant, but good to do once in a while. When I put ashes on a person's head, I will tell them (and it is particularly hard with sick people, who know it all too well) "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return."










Lent is hard to get without experiencing it. But it really can go well.